Nearly every single quality of life issue—the environment, social welfare, the economy, children, health—is being pushed by women leaders." Reilly Morse, Equal Justice Works Katrina Legal Fellow at the Katrina Recovery Office, Mississippi Center for Justice

"Katrina Watch" Contents Where to Donate Blog by Chris Grumm Women and Girls Last? Women's Renaissance of Justice Story from the Field Briefing Paper, Institute for Women’s Policy Research Women and Climate Change, Women's eNews article Katrina Anniversary Report Katrina Report Press Release

New!

Katrina Anniversary Report
August 27, 2006
co-released by the Women's Funding Network and the Ms. Foundation for Women

Women have become a critical force rebuilding the Gulf Coast after being disproportionately affected by Katrina. This report reveals that, while the lens of race and class were applied to the natural disaster early on, the gender dimensions of poverty and recovery on the Gulf Coast have largely been overlooked. The report includes amazing stories of women survivors, outlines post-disaster challenges they face, and the actions they've taken as leaders in the rebuilding process in partnership with women's organizations and women's foundations.

To view or print a report file, you will need a copy of the Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your computer.

Hurricane Recovery Through Women's Funds

As we saw in New Orleans, when disaster strikes, the disaster is indiscriminate but the damage is not. Society does discriminate, and those already denied resources and advantages then become the most affected by the disaster's wholesale destruction.

Anticipating Hurricane Katrina's potential for long-term harm to female entrepreneurs, low-income women, single-parent households, and women at risk of violence, the Women's Funding Network partnered with the Ms. Foundation for Women, Inc. and W.K. Kellogg Foundation to issue $500,000 in grants to the following member 1 funds delivering services and support to the scores of female Katrina survivors that have resettled in their states: Atlanta Foundation for Women (Georgia), Chicago Foundation for Women (Illinois), Women's Fund of Birmingham (Alabama), Women's Fund of Greater Jackson (Mississippi) and Women's Foundation for a Greater Memphis.

Evacuation demographics show that poorer families often ended up the farthest away from the Gulf region; many went wherever emergency flights and buses were destined. Among those that lacked cars or lost their vehicle to flooding, a significant number of families are trying to regain their footing and start their lives anew wherever they landed.

Before Katrina, fifty-six percent of families in New Orleans were not two-parent but female-headed, single-parent households with median annual income of just $16,450-notching them below the federal poverty line. The Institute for Women's Policy Research recently found that women represent more than 90% of prime-age American workers (age 26-59) who average low earnings over 15 years. For many of Hurricane Katrina's female survivors, the loss of their home meant the loss of a home-based business as well.

Attempting to turn around their lives' upheaval, Hurricane Katrina's survivors are hoping for better prospects than they had before. The women's funding movement has set out to help make this a reality. Throughout the South and in other parts of the country, women's funds are delivering resources to create sustainable economic opportunities and to reverse social injustices as the centerpiece of long-term relief for the direct impact of the disaster. The role of the women's funding movement in Hurricane Katrina's aftermath is to identify the ways in which women and girls are impacted, and to make them integral to the disaster recovery and rebuilding of their communities. Thirty years of partnership with grassroots women puts women's funds in a crucial position to funnel support to local activists dealing with economic and social justice issues as well as the long-term reconstruction effort.

• Prior to Katrina, The Women's Foundation for a Greater Memphis (WFGM) was recognized as an important link in the community with grant-making, leadership, volunteer and 25 grantee organizations with supportive services that specifically address special needs of low income and women of color. Thus, in the aftermath of Katrina, WFGM was called upon to be represented on a Task Forces created by the City of Memphis to plan a response process to identify and aid the evacuees. WFGM quickly became a direct point of contact for the grantee organizations, evacuee victims, family members, churches, donors, volunteers and the general public. PWFGM estimates that at least 5,000 evacuees have now made Shelby County, Tennessee their permanent home. The Women's Foundation for a Greater Memphis is dedicating $100,000 to programs providing holistic services for Katrina survivors-work readiness, career development, economic literacy, non-traditional training, entrepreneurship development, housing placement, medical needs, child care, and counseling.
• Within one week of the storm, over 300 displaced families and individuals in Alabama had been linked with emergency resources via a one-stop center comprised of 12 organizations. The Women's Fund of Greater Birmingham played a leadership role in ensuring that women received this emergency support. Today The Women's Fund is planning toward the economic self-sufficiency of women re-building on the Alabama coast, and Katrina's survivors who have adopted Birmingham as their home. The Women's Fund is bundling a continuum of services for low-income and women of color, teaching marketable skills for above-minimum wage jobs, offering job search support and mentoring, and providing childcare vouchers and reliable transportation to help ensure successful employment experiences. They want evacuees to "know that Birmingham will be a permanent home community in which they can thrive."

Reconstruction brings the opportunity to transform prior inequalities, not just for women of the Gulf coast. From the aftermath of the Asian tsunami to the earthquake in northern Pakistan, women are re-building their lives and local infrastructure-or providing for the needs of the displaced-while many of the relief agencies struggle to catch up.

Grassroots women were at the heart of many success stories after Hurricane Mitch, the Category 5 storm that wiped out vast areas of Honduras and Nicaragua in 1998. Having survived Hurricane Joan ten years earlier, the women of Mulukutu, Nicaragua, started a brick factory and held carpentry workshops to build stronger homes for their families. Concerned about the conditions that existed prior to the disaster, including high levels of domestic violence, problems with STDs and unwanted pregnancies, the women used their construction skills to build a women's health clinic, which provided shelter and treatment for families displaced by Hurricane Mitch. Not surprisingly, they gained political power in the municipality and earned respect from their community.

Women's funds in the US are taking a similarly holistic approach to evacuees' long-term needs and combining that with their bird's-eye view of challenging the injustices women had long faced in the Gulf Coast region prior to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

• Louisiana lost five domestic violence shelters in Hurricane Katrina, and Mississippi lost three. A 2005 report by the Violence Policy Center highlighted Mississippi as having one of the highest rates of homicides committed against women in the country. The stress of the disaster and displacement combined with lack of jobs and income will contribute exponentially to pre-existing tendencies toward violence. The Women's Fund of the Community Foundation of Greater Jackson is focusing on providing support for shelters, childcare, physical and mental health services, and legal assistance for women and children who have experienced domestic violence or abuse, "to give a voice in rebuilding to those left out of the process."

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, women's funds have led and made visible the approach that women are not passive victims but vital agents of survival, recovery, and change for their families and communities. Women and girls were in the thick of the crisis and are now on the frontline of resource management and rebuilding in every household, school, and community.

Women's funds are investing in local women's leadership, resourcefulness, and resilience, re-building communities to be more resistant to the economic, race, and gender inequalities that eroded their lives long before the floodwaters of Hurricane Katrina.